Interesting! It all seems so intricate and precise, but it sounds like sometimes it’s actually an illusion created by the technique.
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I have the same problem. I’ve painted minis and my tactic is to just put X color on Y thing I want to be that color. Mr. Bells paints the whole thing black first, and then layers colors on top of it, and his look 1000x better than mine do.
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Oh jeez I still think I do crap work, but then before I moved to Seattle I used to game with a guy who’s table top quality work was amazing. He had won multiple contests at game conventions. Good like right before I moved he said he was going to the big US Games-Workshop games day when they still had them. I told him he was gonna come home with a top prize. He got two. One was in a competition that allowed the studio painters to enter.
Edit he got 2nd for the open category, still impressive and a link to a picture of the first prize 40k squad
http://demonwinner.free.fr/usa/1996/golden_demon_winner.php?categorie=3
also 1996 oh I feel old now.
I am a lot better now but there is a lot you just don’t notice at arms length. If I gave a close up of some models you can see the oops missed fixing that things but it hides when viewed in a group of others at 3 feet away. Plus I am usually rushing to finish stuff before a tournament so there are always goofs somewhere.
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So a long while back, I got it into my head that I wanted to compile my class notes into portable, modular, and nice-looking little notebooks. Part of this was due to a propensity on my part to forget my particular notebook for a particular class, leading to gaps. With this new system, I could use regular sheets of 8.5X11 graph paper or somesuch and then later scan them and reprint them into a format suitable for binding into a notebook. This system failed, but I did get it into my head recently that I know the courses on offer at my Uni, so I can prepare a number of these and sell them for specific courses.
I’ve tried staple, stitch, and perfect binding methods. Stitch looks the best and has the best durability. it’s also the most time consuming.
These are two stitch-bound books (slightly different sizes). I have a slight printing problem, since the toner is waterproof and lightfast, but seems to rub off. This is easily fixable, I think, by using a different printing method. Since it was just for me, I used a graph paper template that prominently displays a URL. Anything I made for someone else wouldn’t. Same thing goes for actual paper that goes inside. One of these uses printer paper, the other uses cotton bond. The printer paper is actually easier to write on, and I’ve experimented with a few different weights and finishes. The blurriness of the lettering is due to censorship on my part, not any printing defect. Tell me what you think. What would you pay for one?
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I would probably buy them if I was going to those courses.
I’ve been meaning to bind my own books (or more specifically notebooks) but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe I’ll get to it sooner rather than later.
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Well, finally finished this sketch, which had been hanging fire for over a decade…
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Exactly.
My hands are nowhere near steady enough for that kind of fine detail, but if you let the paint do the work for you there’s no need for them to be.
Paint all the bits in the colours you want them to be, drybrush a bit of silver onto the bits you want to stand out, cover the whole thing with black thinned down to ink consistency.
Beyond that, there are simple tricks like layering colours. The “metal” bits on those ogres have black underneath, to give them that rough-iron orcish look. If I hadn’t done that, the metal would be much brighter and more suited to an elvish/heroic look.
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@Ignatius I make notebooks too- though I go for the Field Notes mode of 3.5" x 5.5" and three staples for binding. A quick corner punch to put a 10mm radius on them and they’re good to go. I like that I can mix and match paper and paper patterns to get a mix I like.
For archiving, I often just chuck digital stuff into some templates I’ve cooked up and have them printed/bound by a POD service (like Lulu, for example). Works pretty ok.
But those stitched bound notebooks look really nice- I’ll have to work on my covers (as they’re nowhere near as lovely looking as those).
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I’d like to make a traditional style hardcover notebook to my demanding specs. That’s kind of my immediate goal there.
I got a spiral bound notebook printed through Cafe Press (is that even around anymore?) but ended up not using it for a variety of reasons. Lulu’s perfect bound books I’ve gotten look decent enough to get a notebook made with but even the nicest POD solution is probably going to have woeful paper for the purposes of fountain pen use (which I wasn’t using when I did the spiral bound so that wasn’t a factor).
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Indeed- I use the POD only for the physical archiving of digital work- tweets, evernote, scans, etc… The paper quality is ok, but it’s not to the standards of notebook-snob “ok”.
I’d love to learn to do hardbound books, but I need another/new hobby like a hole in the head. And I’m not that into trepanation, so…
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One of my hoodies needed to be perked-up a bit, so I busted out the embroidery floss.
Just simple backstitching, using 3 strands of floss.
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Oh, that looks nice.
I should learn how to do that myself. I once asked for someone to spice up an old shirt with some DNA, but it did not come out well.
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Spice it up or splice it up?
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Is that DNA? (love it!)
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It’s an approximation, to be sure. 
I like to use the design to fill in big areas.
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Reminds me of someone else who did that: “go forth and multiply” 
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That. Is. Boss.
Now I want a double helix hoodie.
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Well, my custom embroidery rates are pretty affordable… 
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But for @japhroaig, a special one-time price of 
?
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